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‘X Factor’ Watch: Nicole Scherzinger Casts the Nondeciding Vote

If you’re ever the defendant in a bench trial, pray that Nicole Scherzinger is the judge weighing your fate. Turns out she can’t make a decision. You’ll get a mistrial for sure.

On Thursday night’s “X Factor” results show, Ms. Scherzinger, one of the four judges, ended up with the crucial vote that would either send Marcus Canty home or leave viewers to make the choice between him and Rachel Crow. She outright admitted that she didn’t want to shoulder any responsibility — explain to me again why she’s a judge if she doesn’t want to do any judging? — and cast a cop-out vote.

The result was that Ms. Crow was given the boot and the chance to do some epic bawling on national television. All in all, it may have been the most embarrassing five minutes since some guy pulled his pants down in one of the early audition shows.

I won’t bore you with too many details, but here’s the gist of it. Three of the five remaining competitors, the top vote-getters from Wednesday night’s show, advanced to the next round: Josh Krajcik, Chris Rene and Melanie Amaro. That left Ms. Crow and, for about the zillionth time, Mr. Canty singing for survival, one song each, with the judges then choosing who would advance. In the event of a 2-2 split, the competitor who received the fewest votes from Wednesday’s show would get the pink slip.

L.A. Reid, of course, voted for Mr. Canty, one of the singers he mentored. Simon Cowell, of course, did the same for his protege, Ms. Crow. Paula Abdul voted for Ms. Crow as well, which meant Ms. Scherzinger’s vote would either send Ms. Crow into the semifinals next week or create a deadlock. In a fit of blubbering, she said she couldn’t have an elimination vote on her conscience and voted against Ms. Crow specifically to create a deadlock.

So it fell to Steve Jones, the host, to announce that the night before, America had given the fewest number of votes to Ms. Crow, so she’d be going home. Ms. Crow, who is 13, had to this point in the show projected a cheery just-glad-to-be-here persona, but at Mr. Jones’s news she pitched a bawling fit that must have come close to overloading the sound system. Some in the live audience also seemed to be booing, presumably at Ms. Scherzinger.

But America made the right choice. This tweener with a taste for age-inappropriate songs (in this show, it was the Etta James lost-love lament “I’d Rather Go Blind”) has been nothing but annoying for weeks now. Besides, she has little to bawl about; she’ll surely turn up before long over-emoting in some Disney series or playing herself in a TV movie of the week.